In 1988 tunnel boring machines aimed at one another began their slow attack from France and the United Kingdom respectively.  The ultimate death match resulted in the Chunnel – a consistent, fixed mode of mass people/cargo transportation across the English Channel.

A similar thing is happening with the inevitable convergence between the fields of Enterprise 2.0 [communities of practice, collaboration networks, knowledge management] and Social Marketing [customer communities, influencer networks, social media, Social CRM].  With the goal being a consistent link between workforce, partners and customers and with the infrastructure to provide a continuous ebb and flow of knowledge, ideas, reputation and all things intangible.  Kinda like the Chunnel.

The success of the Chunnel, as with merging Enterprise 2.0 and Social Marketing initiatives, depends on clear objectives, planning, tools, people and sheer determination.  There’s a big difference too, though.  The Chunnel diggers started at the same time on each side.  I recommend starting your internal/Enterpise 2.0/collaboration initiative before engaging customers or influencers in your customer community/social media initiative.  Don’t meet in the middle.  Why?

Ideally you want some experience with internal collaboration before customers are engaged.  Or ‘Get your house in order before you invite over company.’  Think of your workforce as your immediate family, and your suppliers, partners and vendors as your neighbors.  They can see your house a little messy – especially if it’s due to a snazzy renovation.  Your customers are more like your dates – your best foot is always forward.

It’s for this reason that a strategy where internal collaboration is enabled first is best.  Work out the kinks of collaboration with your internal workforce, suppliers/partners, etc. first so that you’re prepared to respond to customers ridiculously faster than with a silo’d organization.

Evolution of Enterprise 2.0 and Social Marketing

The worlds of Enterprise 2.0 and Social Marketing are the result of a similar evolution[in my mind].  Enterprise 2.0 represents the needed transition in learning and knowledge management from formal [classrooms and databases] to informal [communities and Web 2.0] while Social Marketing is the same evolution in marketing from traditional [print and banner ads] to social [customer and influencer communities].

They have a different audience but the same objective – integrating anyone you count on for success into your strategy for better products, services, efficiency or enhancements to your business model – aka innovation.  Internal and external communities are the incubators of ideas for improvement.  Bring them together successfully and you’ll have the most valuable resource needed for the new economy – knowledge.

Next Steps for Enterprise 2.0 and Social Marketing

As the respective fields are evolving it’s in everyone’s best interest to…wait for it…collaborate.  Shocking, eh?  And this is where those nasty changes in process come into play.  Just b/c it sounds like a great idea for teams form Marketing, Knowledge Management, Innovation, IT, HR, etc. to work together for the sometimes utopian goal of a freeflowing exchange of information through a company’s value network it doesn’t mean it’s easy.  Inconvenient things like politics, personalities, power and culture are all front and center.

This is where we find it helpful to use a tool to visualize and measure process as it occurs in today’s dynamic times. A value network analysis shows stakeholders their current process flows [intangibles included] and let’s them determine how best to rearrange them for mutual benefit.

However it’s done, though, these areas need to be working together – the tunnels within your organization and to those that you count on for success need to be dug and the infrastructure needs to be in place so that knowledge, ideas, reputation and all of the other intangibles you rely on can flow as they need.

For many of the organizations that I speak/work with regarding knowledge networks/communities of practice they have [or are planning on implementing] a collaboration software package with many slick bells and whistles but without a clear path and strategy for getting up and running – this often results in an empty knowledge landscape with little showing except for some bells and whistles strewn about.

Even in the CIO world it’s popular to say that collaboration and innovation isn’t about the software but what do you do in addition to buying software? 

The Iceberg in IT

The delimna I frequently witness is what I call the ‘Iceberg in IT’ conundrum.  Someone decided that people needed to collaborate more and told IT to implement a package that enables collaboration.  While a good software package is certainly a required step, I prefer to put it near last instead of first. 

Using the admittedly cliche and ubiquitous iceberg metaphor above, social software is simply the visible thing that enables collaboration to happen.  When IT is told to purchase it when there is no strategy to generate adoption, it will feel cold and barren [sorry - couldn't help it].  In order to truly affect how this can help people do their jobs there is a large amount of work that needs to done behind the scenes…hence the 7Cs of success:

• Capturing:  the notion of collaboration is foreign in many organizations so people often need to be shown what potential is there if they were to collaborate.  We always visit different geographic locations and capture [via video, audio, memory stick, etc.] what people are working on so that we can determine common topics and have some seed material to begin populating the software system.
• Connecting:  even software that’s designed to connect people will do little in that regard if left on its own.  People [especially when at the early phases] need some help connecting with one another – simple things like setting up bridge calls and facilitating conversations serve to build trust and awareness and provide nuggets of content that can be housed in the platform.
• Combining: in a dispersed organization you’re bound to find bits and pieces of similar work living in a great many places.  Helping the users combine that information using the wiki feature of a platform, for example, will show users the efficiency in working together while training them on what in the world a ‘wiki’ is.
• Contextualizing: the most effective collaboration initiatives will integrate members from an organization’s suppliers and customers and related academic institutions.  Translating that into compelling content that will make sense to your users will be critical in getting them to absorb and leverage it.
• Confirming:  similar to above, if you’re getting knowledge from various sources, care must be taken to ensure that what’s being provided is accurate information so that it can be acted upon.
• Circulating:  what good is the best information if no one knows about it?  The role of a community/network coordinator is essential in circulating news about what’s new, recent questions, etc.
• Communicating: having someone dedicated to getting the word out about the success stories in your knowledge network will go a long way in generating interest, excitement and ,of course, additional funds that will be necessary to continue operations.

Having an effective Web 2.0 collaboration platform at the center of this activity certainly will make it much easier to coordinate but the software alone [today's versions anyhow] will never replace the behind-the-scenes efforts required to start and sustain collaboration and innovation.

Here are some of the methods used at Orbitl RPM:

Knowledge Networks + Communities of Practice

Tips, best practices and insights already flow through most organizations.  Some of the informal interactions that happen around the proverbial water cooler are where the most useful information gets transferred.

It happens in the break room, out to lunch or via a response to an email question.  Orbital RPM adds strategy and structure to this informal organizational element that allows people to learn more from others.  We help cultivate knowledge networks and communities of practice, or groups of people who transfer their knowledge and insights with others in the same role or with the same objectives.  

For executives we offer membership in learning communities that are composed of other executives from similar but non-competing organizations.

For all other employees we specialize in cultivating knowledge networks and communities of practice as a forum for them to learn from others, develop their own solutions and add more value to their employer.  These groups may also include representatives from the organization’s value network.

Knowledge Transfer

NASA’s Lunar Program lost critical knowledge during the downsizing craze of the 1990s when Saturn 5 engineers were encouraged to take early retirement.  One NASA manager confided, “If we want to go to the moon again, we’ll be starting from scratch.  All of that knowledge has disappeared.  It would take at least as long and cost at least as much to go back.”

When people leave an organization, whether through retirement or before, an immense amount of experience, tips, and stories goes with them.  Proactive organizations are finding and sharing that knowledge before it’s gone.

Orbital RPM uses a process that captures and transfers the tacit knowledge that organizations need to avoid re-inventing the wheel, or in most cases, something much more sophisticated than a wheel.

Learning Histories

Knowledge networks tend to focus forward in order to address common issues and collaborate toward innovation.  This neglects the significant events in that group’s recent timeline that can provide content for budding networks as well as resources for knowledge transfer when network members move on. 

Where appropriate, a deliverable will be records (audio, video, text, etc.) of the lessons learned from past transformative events so that mistakes can be learned from and ideas advanced.